Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be seen as a gift to the individual and a curse to the target public. It allows fort the underdog, the small blogs and citizen journalists, to attract a piece of their target public that may otherwise go to the larger chains. On the other hand, it also leads to a flood of spam and websites that attempt to infiltrate and large amount of topics they have no business being around.
It is impossible to properly police SEO, making sure that websites market themselves in the correct arena and allowing for the websites that are in the correct arena to publicize themselves. The scenario of SEO is a balance between what people should do and what the reality is. The best way to combat the problem is to market your product in the online arena so precise that you will come out as the top option for the search. Trying to entire too many fields or fields you have no business being in, will do nothing but clutter the search results and complicate finding your target public.
I go back and forth all the time about whether SEO is "fair." I know that I personally rely on Google for EVERYTHING. "Google It" is my answer to any question I have or someone around me has. But it's unsettling to know that the the results/answers are manipulated by companies and their SEO experts. This wouldn't be an issue if companies only used SEO for the right reasons and had honest, ethical intentions, but unfortunately that's not always the case.